Ever been at the bank and they tried to upsize your loan or hassle you to bring your Kiwisaver to them? Ever been cold called to see if you want a credit card? Want life insurance with that??

If so, you have been on the receiving end of the insidious sales targets culture in the banking industry.

Before you start kicking into ‘those greedy banksters trying to get big sales bonuses’ rhetoric, let’s look behind the scenes, to the daily life of Barbara, a banking consultant at your local multi-national bank branch.

“Every morning we have a sales huddle, you are asked by the manager how many products you are going to sell today. These products range from life insurance to home loans, many are what some call debt products.”

These are sales targets.

“Throughout the day you are asked by the manager why you haven’t sold x number of this or that product. You have to make the target.”

But what if all morning Barbara has only seen an elderly couple, a family struggling on a benefit, and some students?

“It doesn’t matter. You are still pushed for why you haven’t sold products to those people.”

At the end of the day a ‘debrief’ meeting is held. Barbara and her colleagues are again asked why they only sold a certain number of products and what they will do differently the next day to improve. “The pressure is high – you feel humiliated – made to feel ‘what is wrong with you? Can’t you do your job?”

If things don’t improve, the consultant is up for performance management and ultimately disciplinary action.

The targets are often the same regardless of location or demographics so Paraparaumu could have the same targets as Auckland CBD.

“You feel so unethical. Sometimes you know these people can’t afford to take on the debt and the product is not right for them but if you can’t meet target your job is on the line.”

Unfortunately, stories like Barbara’s are commonplace in the banking industry.

The subject of sale targets and associated incentives/disincentives is under close scrutiny following the Wells Fargo scandal in the States. US Bank Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign after it was exposed that thousands of Wells-Fargo employees had been creating false accounts. Why? The pressure to meet impossible sales targets was unbearable and staff felt it was the only option.

“At my branch it was the norm to disregard the customers’ needs and only focus on the sales,’ said former Wells Fargo worker Cassaundra Plummer. “My manager pushed me to only talk about the positives of products and to avoid discussing fees and the things that were negative. He would say things like “you don’t have to tell them all of this, that’s why we give them the paperwork.” I would respond saying “but no one ever reads the paperwork,” and he would say “exactly”.”

After these practices were made public, Wells Fargo have removed sales targets entirely.

Closer to home, Stephen Sedgwick was commissioned to investigate sales culture in the Australian banks. The Sedgwick Report, which was released last week, is clear that there needs to be an overhaul of the sales targets culture and presented 21 recommendations for banks to move away from this culture and towards one of service first, not sales. The Australian banks committed to these recommendations.

However their New Zealand counterparts ANZ, Westpac, BNZ and ASB have been less equivocal of their commitment to change the sales culture, despite being part of the same companies. It is critical we use the opportunity of the Sedgwick report to push the banks here to remove sales targets, and with it the insidious culture that is currently pushing bank staff and their communities to the brink.

In Barbara’s words: “I can’t sleep, I am on anti-depressants and I’m taking my stress out on my family. This is not the job I signed up for. I want to give people good financial advice and assistance not force products on them they can’t afford.”

The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst.” – William Blake

Ponsonby entrepreneurs stood up one after the other extolling the virtues of their ethical startups.I was at a design magazine launch for a friend. Some of them were restaurateurs, some architects, some fashion designers. They were organic, gluten-free, sustainable, eco-friendly and community-oriented and spoke of this at length. Emotional, as they told us the story of discovering their dream and making it a reality. “All it takes is an idea,” they said. Their idea kernels had grown to small businesses and empires were on the horizon. While the warm fuzzies reverberated throughout the room and backs were patted , a question came piercing through the crowd from the back of the room. “ Do you pay your employees a living wage?” It was from a worker of a restaurant just up the road, someone who was working 60 hour weeks often without breaks. The response came from one of the owners of a high class burger joint known to pay their workers much lower than anyone else in the area. “That’s not the point,” she said, “we’re like a family, it not about the money, we work together like a project.” There was no mention of whether this ‘joint project’ meant the owners being on low wages too but after one glance at her Karen Walker bodysuit, the answer would be blatantly not.

While the room was audibly shocked at the question, what shocked me more is why this question doesn’t come up sooner when we support so-called ‘local-authentic-ethical’ businesses.

These businesses glean much liberal kudos from their contributions to the greater good. “For every plastic bag you don’t use we plant a tree in the Amazon”. “We sponsor an underprivileged South Auckland teenager in the arts”. But these businesses are noticeably silent on workers rights and pay. In fact, if you watch closely, you will also find many of them supporting business lobby initiatives that suppress union organisation, health and safety measures and rights on public holidays.

I work for a union and at collective agreement negotiations recently we compared the the corporation in question to McDonald’s as an insult to their record of low pay rises and general approach to their employees. The employer retorted, “We prefer to see ourselves as a boutique French cafe in Ponsonby.”On reflection, the employer was correct. The boutique cafe in Ponsonby is much more likely to have casualised contracts with low wages and poor conditions than McDonald’s.

When we were growing up we were admonished for bad behaviour with the threat of ‘ending up working at McDonalds’ if we continue on this path. Recently , however I found myself telling my niece she would be better off a fast-food worker than continuing on in the high-class fashion shop where she is currently exploited. Ironically, for young people these days mainstream chainstore corporations like McDonald’s have ended up being at the better end of terms and conditions in present day Aotearoa

.

This is not the result of benevolent philanthropic employers but well-organised workplaces with collective mechanisms for improving work life – they’re unionised. The recent Unite Union win against Zero Hours contracts has changed the face of fast food employment and unfortunately remains but a dream for thousands of workers in unorganized workplaces across the country. The most pressing issue in New Zealand is the 80% of workers who aren’t collectivised and struggle for basic respect, rights and representation at work.

For private sector unions in their current format, organising tiny franchisee companies and small businesses is a resource intensive operation that we can’t afford. It makes sense to prioritise the organisation of bigger corporates and see to it the little resource we do have is utilised for a better life to a larger number of families. But while the public’s attention is rightfully faced towards organised labour’s industrial disputes with major corporates let us not forget the boutique smaller employers out there are quietly getting away with much worse. Life for workers under these employers can only improve with the ability and mechanisms to organise themselves collectively. Until all workers are allowed and able to organise freely for improved wages and conditions, the “eco/community friendly” patter of so called ethical business is meaningless and ought to be challenged. On the last day of each month TDB will ask a range of progressive voices in NZ to write a guest blog on what they think ‘the most pressing issue in NZ right now’ is. This month our guest progressives are, Labour Party MP and Marriage Equality champion Louisa Wall; Unionist and human rights activist Tali Williams; and regional champion for the Labour Party, Stuart Nash.

Lola is a manager at a major fast food chain. Last year her employer arbitrarily cut her hours from 32 hours to anywhere between 18 and 26 hours each week. “I said I can’t live off this, even though my hours are being cut, my rent doesn’t get cut to compensate, my bills don’t get cut,” Lola told me. Lola’ s inability to determine week to week what her income would be meant she ended up at a Work and Income office. “For the first time in my life, I had to get a food grant,”she said.

Lola is not the only one. Many workers are reporting they are “hungry for hours” as casual, minimal and zero hours contracts are on the increase in major retail and fast food chains.

Workers across the country say they are being employed on minimal or even zero hour contracts. They end up working a variety of hours, never knowing what income they will receive week to week.

Raj is a worker at a major supermarket chain. When Raj applied for a role working night shift unloading boxes he was given an 8 hour contract and told more hours would be available to him every week.

What he didn’t know was that these hours would come at a price. One morning when he was due to head home his manager asked him to work an hour extra for no pay. Raj was not happy however he had no choice but to stay on. “They said if you won’t work for free we will not give you extra hours next week,” said Raj. “You feel like a slave.” Raj had witnessed employees who spoke up about the exploitation receive less hours than others. His 8 hour contract had him at the whim of his manager, desperate for any extra hours he could get, whatever it took.

It’s easy to see how we are all affected by this , whether directly or indirectly. Friends and family on casualised contracts struggle to keep commitments, attend social occasions and generally participate in society . “It’s very difficult to plan anything at all on these contracts,” said Raj. “ Not even an outing with your family because you get called an hour before “We need you to come in” and if you turn it down you might not get called next time, it’s too big a risk.”

There are a number of ways to address the exploitative practices surrounding minimal hour contracts.

In Denmark and Brazil unions have campaigned for, and successfully won, legislation that gives regulations around guaranteed minimum hours of work (20+ per week). We should be pushing politicians for something similar in New Zealand and in addition legislation that further expands all workers’ right to organise .

Evident of how a well-organised workforce can address issues of zero and limited hour contracts is that of Unite! Union. As well as naming and shaming guilty employers, workers in the fast food industry in Unite! are negotiating clauses in their collective agreements that establish guaranteed minimum hours that provide a liveable income . The clauses also guarantee minimal fluctuations in hours each week to allow workers to plan around their incomes and prescribe that any additional hours will be made available to existing employees before new workers are hired.

A woman had collapsed in the surging crowd in the lobby of Mangere Work and Income. The mood was restless and hungry, faces were beet red , some people had been on their feet waiting for over four hours. Babies were crying and elderly leaned against walls for support. “This is the 3 days a year Work and Income are nice , that’s why we’re trampling on each other to get here,” a woman commented to me.

This was the second year I had volunteered for the annual Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) ‘Impact’ – a three day event where a number of volunteers from all over New Zealand provide advocacy for beneficiaries at one Work and Income branch. This year was Mangere.

Of course, it wasn’t about Work and Income being ‘nice’ – it was that they knew for these days their “clients” would be made well aware of their entitlements. The Paula Bennett business-as-usual approach of wholesale declining of applications for assistance would not wash with the 40 or so AAAP advocates.

The first woman I advocated for was being made to look for work on the Jobseeker benefit. She had 4 children. She had left an abusive relationship and in doing so had lost all her familial support networks. It transpired that the only member of the family who could look after her children while she was at work, abused them. She had nowhere to put the children so had to give up her labour hire job. She cried tears of joy when we were able to argue for some money for clothes for the children, she had always taken clothes from the rubbish of others.

Another woman had got her clothes from one of those mobile clothes trucks. They gave her the clothes upfront , a few basic items , as she was in desperate need. In order to pay the $35 a week fee back to them she had to pawn basic furniture and borrow money from a loan shark. She was so nervous because not only had she always been declined assistance from Work and Income before , but was made to feel embarrassed for asking – this was the common experience amongst the people we saw.

Another young woman was living in a two bedroom home with her 2 year old baby and 12 other people. She did not have a bed. There were no heaters in the house and people were cold. The other people in the home often got to the food before her and baby so they were hungry.

In Mangere. In Auckland. In our backyard.

These stories were not rare.

The extent of the poverty we came across should be a source of national disgrace and shame. We saw 500 beneficiaries over those three days and 500 more had to be turned away because we ran out of time. That’s 1000 desperate cases in one suburb. How many more are out there in just in that suburb let alone any other suburb in the country?

To the politicians who, in vying for our lefty vote, talk of child poverty – child poverty comes from adult poverty. Commit to the creation of secure jobs with decent wages. Commit to affordable housing and healthcare. Commit to repeal Paula Bennetts cruel, punitive and damaging welfare reforms immediately and lift the benefit rates so people can survive on them.

If beneficiaries received their correct entitlements in the first place, this advocacy wouldn’t be as necessary. However as it stands there is a dire need for more beneficiary advocacy and resources for the current groups so they can keep on carrying out this critical work. As the people of Aotearoa we need to organise alongside beneficiaries for the right to a dignified life for all – this is our struggle for a better society , one which doesn’t tolerate these levels of poverty and suffering.

Across the union movement we have seen a number of documented cases now where companies are liquidating their business in order to avoid their legal obligations, in terms of paying the minimum entitlements to their workers.

The most recent example is the case of Momo Tea. Momo Tea workers raised a case related to unpaid wages and annual leave among other breaches to their minimum workers rights. The workers say they were bought into a meeting and told by their employer that because they had raised these breaches the company would be liquidated and they all had to clean up the restaurant and leave as they had lost their jobs. The following day, despite the liquidation, the restaurant carried on trading. The company had simply transferred workers from their other restaurants to cover the shifts.

In most countries there is a law, that once you have liquidated your business, the first creditor that the company must pay is the workers. In New Zealand we don’t have such a law. Increasingly this loophole is being exploited to avoid paying basic minimums. This sort of behavior actually weakens the compliance and the enforcement framework of the labour law and reduces the deterrent factor of any financial sanctions to be imposed on these companies.

Labour inspectors have the ability to uplift the corporate veil and attack directors of companies, in relation to minimum standards breaches, if there is an ability to prove that the director knew or ought to have known that these breaches were occurring. However there’s no real justification for this only to be enforced by the labour inspectorate, why aren’t workers able, or workers through their unions, able to pursue that themselves? The current amount of labour inspectors to actually police minimum entitlements and run cases is entirely insufficient anyway.

There really needs to be a question around how are we going to resource protection of vulnerable workers in this country. Having strong trade unions that can work with migrants is always a better way to empower workers to protect themselves. If we are serious about dealing to new migrant exploitation then employment law frameworks need to be union friendly. It’s also a challenge to trade unions to reconsider the way in which we engage in order to appeal to new migrants.

We have limited liability companies as part of a capitalist economy to stimulate innovation, and to protect people who want to become ‘wealth creators’ however what that seems to mean in real life is protection for people who are exploiting people. We need to say if people are going to run companies that exploit people, and if they know, or ought to have known, then they shouldn’t be able to run a company anymore. We don’t need these people running businesses in our country, there’s plenty who want to run a fair company and pay people correctly. We’re talking about minimum entitlements after all.

The ability of First Unions migrant wing Unemig or any social sector group to take all of the cases of exploitation out there on an individual basis and win those remedies individually, is not sustainable. What we need to be doing is using these cases to profile, raise and push for law reform. As well as any legal approach, we need to be naming and shaming employers responsible for this behaviour.

It’s important that we’re engaging with the community and asking how do we want to have migrant workers treated in New Zealand and how can we structure our laws and our society in a way that does not allow people to be exploited by these companies.

“We will keep on fighting because it frightens me to think my grandchildren could become homeless,” Tere Campbell told me. Tere is a member of Tamaki Housing Group. In September 2011, tenants in 156 state homes in Glen Innes received letters from Housing New Zealand telling them they would be evicted from their homes with no guarantee or right of return to the community. The Tamaki Housing Group – Defend G.I! was formed to resist the evictions.

“We started because there was no consultation there was no meeting with the tenants and so this has come as a huge shock for a lot of people. We’ve been protesting ever since,” said Tere.

Like Tere, many of the residents of Glen Innes have lived there for decades and raised children there. “My adult childrens friends are friends they’ve known from primary. This is G.I everybody knows everybody , you know someone is looking out for you, that’s the unity that is here,” says Tere. “Now these people are being transplanted to other communities where they are the outsiders.”Housing New Zealand introduced an anti-social behaviour clause.You could be evicted if your child gets into trouble even though the contract is with you. There is also a ‘dob-a-neighbour’ aspect to the clause. “They ask their tenants ‘do your neighbours drink, do they have many people over?’ It has destabilised this area . Like a depression, its sad now,” says Tere. “They have been loyal tenants for all these years and then that’s how the state repays their loyalty? By kicking them out?”

Unfortunately the experiences of the Glen Innes community will be increasingly common.

Housing New Zealand has now handed over most of its responsibilities to the Ministry of Social Development. This is part of a policy move towards ‘social housing ‘ rather than state housing. Social housing is run by ‘Community House Providers’ – essentially private landlords from various community groups. MSD will decide who fits the criteria for social housing. From July there will be a review of all tenants which will decide whether state housing tenants will continue to be tenants or forced into the private market. The eligibility tests hinge on whether tenants have ‘improved’ their financial position. Important to note is HNZ will not responsible to house families that do not fit the criteria for a social house once they are reviewed.

While rental prices continue to rise beyond the reach of beneficiaries and low paid workers , the government are now profiting from selling their responsibility to house people, and evicting people from their homes.

We should not accept evictions of state housing tenants in our communities. Tamaki Housing Group Defend G.I have shown us how to fight back . They have staged numerous occupations of the houses at the point of eviction.“Once we know the eviction date we head down there and occupy, we don’t budge,”says Tere. We can all be involved in defending G.I and other state housing communities under threat. Head to saveourhomes.co.nz for fact sheets, resources and community action ideas.

“ Here’s different, workers are union proud,” my friend Josh tells me. He’s just moved to Melbourne and for the first time has joined a union. His pay packet is double that of what he would have earned in New Zealand. The collective agreement means workers who used to not get home til midnight can now leave work on time and see their kids. He understands now the benefits of a strongly unionised worksite.

But Tony Abbott and his Murdoch aligned media buddies have been telling workers like Josh across Australia that their unions are corrupt and bloated. Telling them its so bad that the government needs to spend $100 million investigating the unions through a Royal Commission. A terms of reference released yesterday by the Australian government confirm the Commission will focus on “exposing union corruption”.

When John Howards Work Choices act passed in 2005 it received widespread condemnation from the working class Aussie voter. “Don’t you dare come for our work rights and our unions , Mr Howard” was heard loud and clear in the voting booths in 2007 . The Liberal-National coalition lost the election.

So Abbott is taking the back-door approach this time around. Rather than directly attacking conditions and labour laws , his government is trying to foment distrust between union members and their representatives. Sowing seeds of suspicion amongst members about whether their money is being used correctly. Every paper and TV news show is saturated with anti-union propaganda. In “The Australian” newspaper I read seven articles trumpeting Abbots plan to investigate unions and watched numerous panel shows lambast union officials. They are linking the word ‘union’ with the words ‘corrupt’, ‘bloated’ and ‘useless’ on as many occasions as possible.

Use of union money must be carefully managed. If and where there is genuine misuse of union funds , those in power must be held accountable by their membership. But make no mistake, this is no moralistic crusade from a government that cares about workers , its a cynical and shameful move intended to divide and conquer the working class.

The result of one worker being separated from the next is loss of wages and the hard-fought conditions that make for a decent work life for the average Australian.

Rather than respond defensively , waiting for outcomes from this corrupt Commission, Australian unions need to derail Abbots narrative and out this witch-hunt for what it really is – deliberate and malicious union-busting. Back home, we need to be mindful of the tactics employed by the Australian government, to be better prepared for what might be next on the agenda for Abbots professed soul mate, Mr Key.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/12/abbots-royal-commission-to-bust-unions/feed/8$60 a start, but welfare reforms must go toohttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/01/30/60-a-start-but-welfare-reforms-must-go-too/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/01/30/60-a-start-but-welfare-reforms-must-go-too/#commentsWed, 29 Jan 2014 18:08:19 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=40180
Labour’s new “Best Start” policy of an extra $60 a week would be a welcome reprieve for hungry families. Yet any real improvements for the 600,000 Kiwis living below the poverty line will mean getting rid of National’s welfare reforms.

I came across numerous beneficiaries suffering under National’s welfare cuts when I volunteered as a beneficiary advocate last year. One young man had his benefit reduced by 50 per cent for four weeks because he hadn’t shown up to one of the JobSeeker seminars. He actually arrived on time for the workshop, but was told the venue had changed when he arrived. An elderly Pacific Islander and recent migrant had her benefit cut after receiving letters in the mail she couldn’t understand. Another had her benefit cut because she waited for her late case manager for an hour and then had to go home before it was dark because she couldn’t afford a bus or train.

These horror stories are all too common. One aspect of Paula Bennett’s “pull-the-benefit” reforms is cutting or reducing them if strict conditions are not met. Conditions include being available for work preparation even if it means attending the same seminar five times and taking whatever job is going. A person who has their benefit cancelled is stood down for 13 weeks even if they re-comply with their obligations.

Between October 2010 and November 2012, a total of 16,063 parents and their kids were sanctioned. The benefit for a couple with one or more children is $341.60 per week. Sanctions on this family could mean losing half their income. What family can afford to meet their food, rent and other basic expenses on $170.80 a week? This leads to poor health, evictions and kids going to school hungry.

There is currently a trial underway to get sole parents and those with mental health issues off benefits. Specialist providers are paid up to $12,000 to get one person off a benefit and into work. Yet funding is not available to those with mental health issues to get the professional support they may need to get back into work. Training or up-skilling isn’t available either.

Where are these jobs providers will miraculously deliver? A Ministry of Social Development official told a radio host “I think the jobs are there”. Helpful. Even if there were jobs available, employers are unlikely to select someone who has severe mental health requirements, complicated childcare arrangements or drug and alcohol issues over thousands of qualified job-seekers desperately seeking work.

The $12,000 incentive will pressure people into accepting unsuitable jobs. The pressure for the provider to reach their targets will create an ‘any job is better than no job’ mentality . These will be the first jobs to go when the economy falls and these newly placed workers are back at square one.

Many middle and upper class New Zealanders have no idea of how awful and complicated the process of recieving a social welfare benefit can be. This means addressing beneficiaries’ concerns appears to be a no-go area for political parties wooing middle New Zealand.

The Best Start policy is just that – a start. On its own it doesn’t address the key reasons families remain in poverty: punitive and discriminatory welfare legislation. What we need to hear loud and clear from those wanting to be a part of the next Government is a commitment to tackling poverty and to dumping these welfare reforms.

On hearing of the death of Ariel Sharon I thought about Gaza, where I visited in 2012 . The people of Gaza are trapped in a giant prison and Sharon was the one who locked the gates.

In 2005 , to much fanfare, Sharon declared that Israel would extract its settlers from Gaza – a gesture of peace the world would say. What many do not know is the cynical intent behind this move. Sharon dictated the terms of a settlement on the Palestinians when he was supposed to negotiate with them – they would have no say in the process, they would have no state of their own and Israel would continue expanding settlements in the West Bank. Israel still controls Gaza’s air and sea borders. The siege and successive invasions of Gaza ensued.

Even as Sharon was being buried in his farm built on the lands of the remains of the Palestinian village of Hooj, Israel was attacking Gaza resulting in the injury of 3-year old child.

General Sharon believed all resistance to the occupation was terrorism. And he used this to justify consistently applying collective punishment on the Palestinians. Before politics, he commanded the Israeli army’s Unit 101 in the 1950’s, which mainly operated in Gaza. Unit 101 was eventually disbanded due to its savage tactics and excessive cruelty to Palestinians.

I visited Gaza as part of the Kia Ora Gaza aid convoy. The reason Kiwis, and many others from around the world were bringing basic provisions to Gaza was because of Israels siege. Sharon’s legacy.

The stated aim of Israel’s blockade, imposed in 2007, was to apply pressure or sanctions to weaken the economy of Gaza and decrease support for the elected government Hamas. This amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilians, and as such is a violation of international humanitarian law .

We visited hospitals , schools, universities, parliamentary grounds , bridges , all of which have been struck by Israeli F-16s over the past few years . The siege does not allow construction materials into Gaza. Our taxi driver told me after Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 – an Israeli invasion on Gaza that resulted in the loss of 1500 Palestian lives – people got back to normal life as soon as possible and started to rebuild their infrastructure the best they could with the resources they had. Like Kiwis, Gazans have a tradition of ingenuity. We saw how they have constructed critical pieces of machinery that aren’t allowed across the border using scrap metal or smuggled pieces from Egypt. The smuggling tunnels themselves , running from Egypt to Gaza underground, were dug without the use of modern construction equipment. These tunnels are currently being destroyed by the Egyptian military. Yousef, a student and translator for us , says nothing will stop Palestinians looking after their own ” if the food doesn’t come from across the border , we will just dig it up from the ground” .

At Shufa hospital , the largest in Gaza, we met Dr Amman. During Operation Cast Lead , he came across many instances in his hospital where patients were burned by white phosphorus, dropped from the sky. There were weapons used by Israel that resulted in injuries the doctors did not understand, nor know how to treat, which devastated him as a doctor. The hospital was bombed in 2008 and has now been rebuilt. At the emergency department, we walk past shelves of expired medicines . “The ban on medicines is the worst crime of all” he says “we can not help the sick , even those with treatable illnesses.”

Jabileyeh refugee camp borders Israel and is the area worst hit during bombardments. We are told that earlier this year 8 civilians were killed in one such incident. Buildings are either rubble or pockmarked with bullet holes . Overcrowding was a serious problem, some of the homes we visited contained up to 25 people living in two basic rooms. Black outs, caused by Israel not allowing enough electricity into Gaza, meant those two basic rooms after dark were often pitch black. Even for those few moments in those rooms I felt scared and vulnerable ,I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to spend so much time in pure darkness. The poverty is intense , a woman approached me with her baby pleading and crying for money.
Everywhere we went we were followed by curious children, they took great joy in asking us questions and welcoming us to Gaza. Parents here are not concerned to have their children wander the streets as they please. ‘After all these children have seen and experienced what more is there for a parent to be afraid of?’ they say.

One of the leaders of the Hamas government Dr Mahmoud al Zahhar told us “if we lost our dignity we’d be our own enemy’. Perhaps that is the spirit that has seen the people of Gaza return and build even in the face of attacks and unimaginable adversity.

They don’t need us to do anything but help tear down the gates Sharon built.

When I first heard of some taxi drivers at Auckland Airport going on hunger strike I instinctively thought “We don’t do that here”. It seemed impossibly radical, surely there were other options that would be more effective in a New Zealand context? I mean, I’m sure it’s bad but can’t be anything we haven’t seen before right? What issue in a country like New Zealand could possibly move them to such extremities?

Troubled by my own ignorance on the matter, I took a drive out to the protest to talk to the drivers outside the Auckland airport management building. I was struck immediately by the tight organisation of the picket line – this was creme de la creme of picket lines. The 70 or so mainly Indian new migrants had professionally printed signage , relentless chanting that fell in repeated rounds with precision, support was strong and morale was high even if people were hungry. The response to my initial ponderings was summarised on one taxi drivers placard “Better to starve fighting, then starve working.”

They were certainly on starvation wages if they had work at all. Days earlier 50 taxi drivers with President Taxis had effectively been fired. President Taxi’s had had its contract severed with the Airport. Even before the contract was severed most of these guys were earning around $4 an hour – well below the minimum wage.

The interesting thing was – it was President Taxi employees who happened to be the core activists of the newly formed Auckland Taxi Association. Earlier this month around 200 airport taxi drivers identified a number of abuses against taxi drivers at the Airport. Being contractors and not direct employees, they couldn’t join a union so instead formed the Auckland Taxi Association to fight for better conditions and rights.

Manmohan Singh, one of the drivers affected and the spokesperson for Auckland Taxi Association (ATA), said he believed that President Taxis losing its contract to Auckland Airport was an attempt by the Airport Company to isolate the leadership of the Association and break its campaign for the rights of taxi drivers at Auckland airport.

200 taxi drivers who were members of the Association met together to discuss a response. Mainstream news told us these taxi drivers were prepared to go on hunger strike, or even set themselves on fire in protest. While the rest of us gasped into our lattes, for the drivers the choice was between starvation wages or solidarity and fight back. There was nothing to lose and a decision was made democratically among the drivers to do whatever it took to get their incomes back.

Despite the high levels of self-organisation I witnessed on the picket line , leaders of the ATA sought support from FIRST Union and union organiser Bill Bradford was assigned to the dispute, helping out with negotiations and hauling the rest of us organisers out to support the drivers where needed.

After marching, picketing and chanting for 6 days and holding their hunger strike for 4 of those days finally Auckland Airport management wanted to meet. And wanted to meet seriously. After 8 hours of negotiation all of the taxi drivers concerns had been addressed.

The taxi drivers dispute was a success story and an example to us all.

Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge my original initial response. “We don’t do that here.”

Businesses continue to exploit new migrant workers in this country , this has led us to associate new migrants with vulnerability. However as our migrant communities grow in confidence, and begin to reject the exploitation many of them suffer from, we have seen and will continue to see them use their collective strength to create difference in their lives.

The same goes for workers in non-traditional and insecure work such as contractors or casual workers.

This will necessarily entail forms of organising and tactics that are unfamiliar. As a movement, we need to support, celebrate and learn from these as we come across them or risk isolating ourselves from the increasing numbers of migrant and precarious workers and their communities.

I met a young fugitive in Syria in 2008. Mehiyar, four of his mates and I met surreptitiously down an alley way, nervously checking behind our shoulders every couple of minutes. Mehiyar had escaped from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and was on the run.

But being on the run was nothing new for Mehiyar. Born in the West Bank in 1982 his family fled due to the unbearable conditions they were subjected to by the Israeli occupation and its apartheid policies.

In Mehiyar’s case, his family found refuge in Saddam’s Iraq. In 2003 their relative peace ended when the US invaded. Following the overthrow of Hussein many Palestinians were stereotyped as supporters of Saddam Hussein and prime candidates for the insurgency. They faced harassment, threats of deportation, arbitrary detention, torture and murder from elements of the US-installed Ministry of Interior. Mehiyar found himself arrested for contributing to anti-occupation newspapers and ended up in Abu Ghraib prison. The world, through those infamous photos, knows what happened to him next.

Mehiyar took advantage of a prison riot to escape. He got stuck for four months in the no man’s land of the Tempf border camp between Syria and Iraq. The camp was completely uninhabitable: there was no access to food or water and it was unsheltered from the cold and extremely windy desert.

In this alleyway in Damascus Mehiyar said to me, “There is blood wherever I go but no home to come back to.”

In my travels across Syria I met many more with similar stories. Refugees two or three times over as a result of the West’s wars and occupations. Many refugees are denied entry to surrounding countries, which are already overpopulated with Iraqi and Palestinian refugees but don’t have sufficient resources to sustain them.

Today I wonder where are all those I interviewed in Syria. They have become refugees once again, this time at the hands of civil war. Where can they go?

International authorities such as the UNHCR are well aware of the urgent need for other countries
to allow more refugees in but few countries have responded to the cry for help.

Take New Zealand for example. Our refugee quota hasn’t increased since 1987.

New Zealands resettlement quota for 2013 is 750. To put this in perspective Australia’s quota is 20,000. While it is laudable to lambast Abbott’s attitude to refugees bear in mind our own countries misgivings in this area. Even if we increased our quota twenty fold we wouldn’t touch the numbers Sweden accommodates.

The quota is set by the Minister of Immigration for three year cycles and the last one was set in July, all behind the scenes with nothing going through parliament.

A campaign called “Doing Our Bit” is lobbying for a doubling of our UNHCR resettlement quota in New Zealand and also doubling the refugee funding to ensure the resources are in place to cope with the increase.

Letting more refugees resettle in New Zealand does not solve the root causes of these wars. The onus is still on us all to put a stop to the needless imperialist wars and subsequent death and displacement.

However, in the meantime people need somewhere to live. Increasing the resettlement quota is something practical and meaningful we can campaign on and call our government to account for.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/04/time-to-let-more-refugees-settle-in-new-zealand/feed/20Employers not listening to workers is a matter of life and deathhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/11/20/employers-not-listening-to-workers-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/11/20/employers-not-listening-to-workers-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death/#commentsTue, 19 Nov 2013 18:04:36 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=36312

Once I got a call from a call centre union member to say the building she was working in smelt like gas. She had informed the manager but the manager said its nothing just get back to work. She felt physically ill – did she and her colleagues have to stay? No, I said. get out of the building immediately and take others with you. The manager called HR and senior management to try to get the workers to stay. They all called me, livid I had told the workers to leave and falling over themselves to lay out the disciplinary processes that would follow. Meanwhile one of the maintenance workers uncovered there was a gas leak in one of the rooms. Everyone was immediately evacuated.

With the odd exception most managers I’ve dealt with have not been interested in genuine engagement with its own employees or the union. Even when its a matter of life and death.

Employers are quick to set up their own employee organisations or health and safety committees to disenfranchise unions but they ignore the findings of these organisations just as swiftly as they do unions.

Author Rebecca Macfie has revealed in her new book on the Pike River mine disaster the extent that the anti-union management at the mine contributed to the deaths of those 29 men. On numerous occasions men informed management and the health and safety committee of their safety concerns, in particular the lack of a second emergency exit at the mine, and were soundly ignored.

At one point a union delegate noticed a lack of vehicles to evacuate men from the mine in the event of a disaster. Union organiser Matt Winter gave advice to the workers to walk out of the mine, a right they have under health and safety law. Like my experience, rather than deal with the concerns at hand, the HR of Pike berated Matt , telling him the union would be sued. When a health and safety manager tried to have the union involved in health and safety training he was reprimanded for even using the word ‘union’ in the same sentence as Pike.

Last month in San Francisco railway workers at the Bay Area Rapid Transit took strike action citing their concerns for safety linked to changes management were proposing. Management, eager to sideline the unions relevance, kept the trains running using strike breakers (often referred to as scab labour). Due to the lack of skill and experience of those brought in to cover the work, two railway employees inspecting the tracks were hit by a train and killed.

Rabid anti-unionism goes hand in hand with neo-liberal ideology. While these examples are at the extreme they go to show the devastating result of what happens when ideology gets in the way of listening to those on the shop floor with the experience to know what will work and what won’t , what is safe or unsafe.

It is tiresome and infuriating engaging in a daily battle with employers who refuse to accept this basic premise and continue to treat their workforce with suspicion and disdain – whatever the cost.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/11/20/employers-not-listening-to-workers-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death/feed/4Organizing insecure workershttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/23/organizing-insecure-workers/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/23/organizing-insecure-workers/#commentsTue, 22 Oct 2013 19:09:34 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=34836
At one point a few years ago I had two friends working at the same cinema in Wellington, who would get rostered or not rostered depending entirely on the whim of this one manager.

If one of them was out of favour with the manager, for whatever reason could be conjured, he wouldn’t be rostered to work and we wouldn’t be enjoying our weekly laksa through lack of funds. And if the other were offered a last minute shift the laksa date was also out of the question.

That manager really messed with my weekly laksa! And more concerningly my friends’ ability to pay rent.
The release of the Council of Trade Unions report on insecure work — which asserts that at least 30% of Kiwi workers are in some form of insecure employment — led to me to assess the current predicaments of my various friends and family members very much in this category themselves.

I’m always blabbing on at them as I should (being a union organiser and all) that they need to join their union. But how are unions organising insecure workers? Could we be doing more to respond to this workforce that is so drastically different from the one many of our traditional organising models were based on?
While insecure work can take on many forms it generally refers to situations where workers’ hours are erratic and occasionally nonexistent. Those employed as labour hire, classified as contractors, on fixed-term agreements, new immigrants or casuals, like my friends, who are just called in when the supervisor decides.

While the CTU report gives a lot of critical recommendations, like negotiating provisions in collectives and lobbying for better laws, my concern is more with what happens when we get to the shop floor level.
I worked on a campaign earlier this year in a workplace where new immigrants were rostered on a weekly basis and found themselves unrostered when they joined the union or spoke up on issues. With laudable guts and savvy those workers took enormous risks to expose the company; months on we have transparency with the roster system.

I also could delve into innumerable unsuccessful attempts at organising insecure workers. There sure is a lot to lose. And I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers.

Members are with us for decades, the company shifts their operations to China. Those workers are now unemployed and we totally lose touch with them despite them being in the vulnerable position of being unemployed. Many members particularly in the private sector are in and out of employment all the time on fixed term and casual contracts. How do we keep workers involved when they’re not working? The answer may partly lie in supporting organising the unemployed.

Resourcing beneficiary advocacy capabilities within the movement and involving unemployed workers in wider campaigns for job security and decent employment are ways we can keep our members involved. This in turn could increase the likelihood of members being in an empowered position when they do return to work.
While these are some initial suggestions if we are to take seriously the results of the CTU report on insecure work in New Zealand then as a movement we need to investigate further the options for organising insecure workers through discussions and strategising at the grassroots level.

I’m making a call for dialogue between organisers from all unions. There are plenty of organisers out there with a ton of experience in what works and doesn’t work. Somehow we’re not sharing these learnings amongst ourselves. If we don’t address this we risk being deemed irrelevant in the eyes of the increasing number of insecure workers.

Jerry at 18 was working as a part time cleaner but he walked out of the job the other day. It was the last time his boss would yell at him, finger in the face yelling , that humiliating yelling they do in front of others. He kept getting told he had to work for free at the end of his shift. He had put up with it for long enough. We all do. It seems to take a lot to move so many of us to really put our foot down in the face of power.

When I told my chef boss I was calling a union meeting that night after work I felt physically sick. I had to work with this person every day, his sour face at my mentioning of the word union will remain etched in memory forever. Up to that point he had occasionally been lovely laughing and joking with us all but he also had been verbally harassing me and Emma my pregnant workmate unchecked for months. It was awkward and hard to make a stand but I gritted my teeth and did it.

Not that I had much at risk. What about Lupe, a grandmother refusing to sign new hours of work shoved in front of her face by her employer that meant she couldn’t bring in enough income for her kids? What about Ali an unemployed young woman, clutching her AAAP flyer, demanding to see the manager when her case manager at Work and Income refused to grant her a Job Seekers benefit?

Challenging power – whether it’s a bully at work, your employer, the boss at Work and Income or the gas company – is tough.

But when we do it, who hears about it? And if no-one hears about it, is it a missed opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate someone taking a very awkward but critical step to improve things for themselves and others? Is it a missed opportunity to inspire others to challenge? Is it a missed opportunity to increase involvement in broader political action?

We hear about the big stuff . Someone wins a major court case, the delegate on the protest march, the ex-employee posting an ostentatious YouTube clip resignation. But all this can feel so distant, so beyond our own experience . Maybe that person can lead a march down the main street but that’s not my reality. What about Lupe,Ali and Jerry ?

While these everyday examples of resistance may not in themselves change structural power imbalance or social conditions overnight, they serve as an important, and often unrecognised reminder that every single day people are taking steps to challenge their own exploitation.

Lupe’s workmates challenged their change of hours after they heard about what she did. Ali got her benefit and now her neighbours know how to get theirs. Jerry the cleaner took another risk after his experience, he contacted me and wants to share his story. He wonders if he might be able to help others who are in the same position as him.

If we can get these stories of every day defiance out there, then could it help us gain a clearer picture of how universal our struggles are; and ultimately how universal our resistance could be?

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/09/in-praise-of-every-day-defiance/feed/9The reality of Poverty under the National Governmenthttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/09/25/the-reality-of-poverty-under-the-national-government/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/09/25/the-reality-of-poverty-under-the-national-government/#commentsTue, 24 Sep 2013 21:15:18 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=32656The first was this young guy who had no income whatsoever. He had been told by his work and income case manager he wasn’t entitled to the JobSeeker benefit because he couldn’t produce a birth certificate even though he had a drivers licence ID. It turned out that case manager wasn’t telling the truth and this guy had been sleeping on friends couches and eating out of bins for no reason. For 10 months.

After over a decade of being a workers rights advocate as a union organiser nothing could have prepared me for the extent of hopelessness, desperation and frustration that accompanied being an advocate for beneficiaries for one day. I was one of the Auckland Against Against Poverty advocates a couple of weeks ago at their Impact welfare advocacy at New Lynn work and income.

In the waiting room, far from the ‘entitled beneficiary’ stereotype that mainstream media foists on us, I saw hardworking families trying to juggle impossible situations. Fathers made redundant from manufacturing jobs, teenage victims of the 90 day dismissal period , public servants made redundant by the government, brothers who were five minutes late to a work and income workshop and lost 3 weeks of their benefit because of it. Grandmothers getting work- tested when they are caring for grandkids full time because their parents are working two or three temp jobs to make ends meet.

When we sat in front of a case manager their eyes would look down and they would shuffle nervously on their seat. Waiting to be denied again. But pleading anyway because they have literally nothing to lose.

The case manager scrutinises the $200 that person had spent the previous week. $160 on rent – yes but what about the $40? $35 on electricity – yes but what about the $5? The humiliation of having to justify every last cent. Now please can we have the food grant?

The case manager pulls a face and types slowly , every second passes like a minute as we wait for the verdict. I was there as an advocate, a word that evokes strength and efficacy, but I felt like pleading too. The odds were stacked up against us. The welfare legislation is vague and confusing, after constantly being cut and recreated at the whim of whatever welfare minister is in power. I wondered what was our recourse if a grant was refused. Pursuing a review was possible but these are mainly run internally and it was hard to feel confidence in this process.

What could deliver justice and a fair outcome here? Failure today meant no food for the week, there was no time to lose.

Every day of my life is filled with conflict, as the life of a union organiser often is, as is inevitable working with vulnerable people against those in positions of power.

But in this conflict we are backed up by some fairly firm employment rights legislation, industrial power (the ability of workers – limited as it may be- to withdraw their labour), resource and ultimately, where called upon, a union movement.

Its no longer them, the unemployed and us, the employed – the chosen ones. With the changes this government has in store for working people I’m left feeling if we don’t act now many of us will face the same fate. Endlessly waiting in rooms with hungry children for a chance to see a case manager ,pleading politely for a food voucher to survive the week.

Auckland Action Against Poverty is doing an incredible job with what resources they have , but what more can we be doing in this country to build a movement of support and empowerment for the unemployed?